I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly is directed to methods and systems relating to actions performed by access terminals or mobile devices when such devices are dormant and the access terminal or mobile device determines that it is unlikely that further data will be interchanged with a cooperating base station.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data can be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). For instance, a system can use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems can simultaneously support communication for multiple access terminals. Each access terminal can communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to access terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from access terminals to base stations. This communication link can be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-single-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
MIMO systems commonly employ multiple (NT) transmit antennas and multiple (NR) receive antennas for data transmission. A MIMO channel formed by the NT transmit and NR receive antennas can be decomposed into NS independent channels, which can be referred to as spatial channels, where NS≦{NT,NR}. Each of the NS independent channels corresponds to a dimension. Moreover, MIMO systems can provide improved performance (e.g., increased spectral efficiency, higher throughput and/or greater reliability) if the additional dimensionalities created by the multiple transmit and receive antennas are utilized.
MIMO systems can support various duplexing techniques to divide forward and reverse link communications over a common physical medium. For instance, frequency division duplex (FDD) systems can utilize disparate frequency regions for forward and reverse link communications. Further, in time division duplex (TDD) systems, forward and reverse link communications can employ a common frequency region so that the reciprocity principle allows estimation of the forward link channel from reverse link channel.
Wireless communication systems oftentimes employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream may be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to an access terminal. An access terminal within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, an access terminal can transmit data to the base station or another access terminal.
Wireless communication systems can typically be divided into multiple packet zones wherein as a mobile device traverses amongst the various zones it can be required to reconnect its packet data service whenever changes in System ID (SID), Network ID (NID), or Packet Zone ID (PZID) parameters associated with a wireless network are detected. Generally, and compliance with the 3GPP2 standard “Data Service Options for Spread Spectrum Systems: Service Options 33 and 66” (e.g., 3GPP2 C.S0017-012-A, Version 2.0) that defines the requirements necessary to support high-speed packet data transmission capability on CDMA2000® spread spectrum systems, the reconnect process is necessary to maintain PPP (point-to-point protocol) connectivity in case the wireless network needs to move the so-called “R-P” interface (also known as A10 and A11) between the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the Packet Data Servicing Node (PDSN) associated with the packet data service or in some cases needs to assign a new IP address to the mobile device. Nevertheless, where packet zone changes are rapid and/or continuous, an inordinate amount of processing resources can unnecessarily be expended in facilitating such precipitous and/or constant reconnection, leading to a commensurate depletion of battery life on the mobile device. In order to avoid the foregoing issues, a mobile device can be placed in a state of hysteresis allowing the mobile device to reduce the number of connections when the device is transitioning between two or more packet zones and when an associated base station has not required the mobile device to store more than one visited packet zone. Typically a hysteresis state can be entered into through use of a Hysteresis Activation Timer (HAT) that monitors the amount of time remaining before the mobile device is placed in hysteresis. Accordingly, by setting the hysteresis activation timer (HAT) to a smaller value can place the mobile device into a state of hysteresis sooner thereby both avoiding reconnections when the packet zones change quickly as well as saving some over the air messaging.
However, a conflict can arise when a mobile device or access terminal has multiple applications running simultaneously and exchanging data concurrently with a base station. The conflict occurs when the multiple applications attempt to control (e.g., set or reset) a Hysteresis Activation Timer (HAT) value when they have no data to interchange, which can result in undesired or incorrect value settings of the Hysteresis Activation Timer (HAT).